The Fortune of Ned the Ugly

After perhaps half an hour of walking, Tori glanced behind us. "You're sure your men are back there? I don't hear a thing."
"I told them to piss off," I explained. She didn't press the issue any further.
We walked silently after that, until the sun was low in the sky and the crossroads neared. "Let's make camp there," I said, and my new companion just nodded amiably. Following a worn wagon rut off the road we found a clearing obviously meant for camping. In little time I had a small fire crackling cheerfully, and I dug in my pack for dinner. Pulling out some jerky, I stuck a piece in my mouth, and offered some to Tori. She looked at it and blanched slightly. "Wha' w'ong?" I asked around my food.
She looked at me sheepishly, and murmured "...I'm a vegetarian."
I wondered if she meant that minotaurs were herbivores, or that she had a dietary standard, but I didn't ask. Feeling silly but refusing to show it, I put half the jerky away and fished out some hard tack baked from crushed oats and molasses and some other things I couldn't identify. I hated the stuff, it would be most convenient if she preferred it.
She took the biscuit and looked it over. Apparently it was satisfactory, because she smiled and nodded, and took a big bite. "'anks!"
"Don'k men'on it," I mumbled in reply, and smiled back at her while we chewed.
We finished eating, and I broke the silence first. "I always thought Minotaurs were supposed to have the head of a bull."
Tori giggled, "That's just a legend. Aurog, one of our chieftains generations ago, lost his horns in a mating duel, and was so embarrased he would go into battle wearing the head of the largest bull he could find. Couldn't see a thing, but he couldn't be talked out of it. He died that way--stumbled into a ravine and broke his neck. We still call that ravine Aurog's Fall."

We plugged away at making small talk for a little while, but she didn't know much about the world, and I kept having to brush off her questions about my army. Soon enough we gave up, and I started trying to figure out how we were both going to fit in my bedroll.
Ultimately we ended up sleeping on her cloak, which was big enough for the two of us, with the bedroll atop us as a blanket. I undressed and slid in beside her, hoping to spoon up against her back in some effort to prove my masculine dominance, but realized quickly that her horns made it impossible not only for her to sleep on her side, but even to share a pillow. Disappointed, I grudgingly settled in at her side, resting my head on her shoulder and draping my arm across her torso. My troubled pride was soothed by the discovery that although her body was amply muscled, her curves were slightly plump, and pleasantly soft. Pulling her a little closer, I suffered my hands to gently trace the countour of her other side while I drifted to sleep.

But contrary to my intentions my enthusiasm grew, and she did nothing to discourage my exploration. Before long I was on a tactile adventure across the still-new terrain of her body, exploring her hills and valleys, scaling the mountains of her breasts and daring the warm jungle between her smooth thighs. Her breathing quickened, and before long touching turned to kissing, and our bodies came alive. She drew her legs up against my sides when I shifted to kneel over her, and her loud, lusty cow call rang in my ears when I entered her. Weird though it was, I found it slightly arousing. It must have been the quality of her voice. Her lips were too great a stretch for me, so I settled for nibbling on her breasts, which seemed to suit her just fine.
We indulged ourselves in eachother for a good long while, until we were both spent and satisfied, then finally settled down again to sleep. The fire had burned down to embers and our skin and bed was damp with sweat, but we were both warm. Sleep came easily then, and I hardly even minded that I was forced to cuddle up at her side like a boy.

The next morning I woke early, and rose without waking Tori, who apparently slept like a rock. Wandering off to find some water (and some fresh food, if I were lucky), my mind wandered as well. There was something that had been bothering me about the idea of reaching to the next town, but it wasn't until I was almost back at camp with a full waterskin and a few small, tart apples in my pocket that I realized what it was. My traveling was over. I had been wandering for years for lack of any other purpose to my life, hoping I'd fall in the proverbial pot of honey, and here was my honey pot next to the camp fire. The thought left me breathless and more than a little uncertain. What was next?
I considered my options silently as I set out the apples and stowed my waterskin, and slipped back into bed beside Tori, still clothed but wishing for her warmth.
Eventually she woke and sat up slowly, stirring me from my thoughts. I sat up beside her and handed her an apple. "'morning. Breakfast?"
She smiled and took the apple, devouring it whole, and stretched. "I guess we better get packed up and get a move on, right?"
I shook my head "I don't think we have very far to go today, let's take our time."
She caught on quickly to what I was getting at, but we came to a silent agreement that breakfast was more important. I had decided that it even if she really meant to stay with me from now on, it couldn't hurt to take as much advantage of the situation as possible, and I was glad when she did not so much as even tease me about my sexual appetite. After eating she suggested something new, and after I agreed that it sounded like a good idea she found a suitable tree, knelt before it, and bracing herself with one hand she bent over and spread her lips with the other. Positively maddened by her display, I set about getting to know this new side of her with gusto. She grabbed the tree with both hands and urged me on with cries and moans and the occasional moo, and I did my best to reward her guileless generosity.

Later in the day we packed up camp, myself with a profound sense of satisfaction and well-being and her with a happy smile. I suspected by now that she was not the brightest color in the sunset, but her personality was absolutely pleasant, and she seemed to be enjoying our new partnership quite as much as I was, so I was more than willing to accept her as she was.
We ventured back out to the road and walked a short way down the road, finally reaching the fateful crossroads. I didn't have much use for crossroads generally, I always traveled west when I could. West was the way the world flowed, and travel was always easier. But today I stopped here, and turned south into the woods. Tori asked where we were going, but I waved her off gently. She would see.
After a few minutes of wandering back and forth, we found a clearing that suited me. I dropped my back, and shrugged, looking around. "Here we are."
She looked around at the clearing, looked up, and then shrugged. "Where is here?"
"Home," I said. "It doesn't look like much I guess, I'll have to build a house."
She looked at be dubiously. "That's it? What about all the marauding?"

I looked back at her. "Look babe, I've been a lot of places, and seen a lot of trouble. There are a lot of angry men in the world, and the secret most of 'em don't want you to know is that most of the time, all they're really looking for out of life is the right woman and a place to settle down with her."
She digested for a second, then a slow smile spread across her face "...so I'm the right woman?"
I nodded, "You're the best I've ever laid a hand on, you're damn well good enough for me."
SHe did another quick scan of the clearing, and looked a little concerned again. "And this... is the right place?"
I shrugged again, and held up my hands. "It might as well be. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think either of us fits in very well. I'm not too popular around cities, and most humans think minotaurs are savage brutes. I didn't even know better until I met you yesterday. I don't care for big crowds much anyway, and out here we can be as loud as we want without bothering no one." I grinned meaningfully at her, and Tori blushed cutely.

We spent the day exploring the nearby area, finding a downstream section of the same brook where I'd collected water for breakfast. I guessed it was fed by the trickle I'd stopped at the other morning. Tori found a small stand of fruit trees a quarter mile into the woods, and I set out a few rabbit snares, hoping to have something tasty by dinner. After that I started carrying stones from the brook to the clearing, laying out a basic foundation for a house. Tori tried to help, but I turned her away. Later, when my back was starting to hurt and my arms were tired from the work, I began to think of her rather thick arms, imagining her carrying rocks with ease, but I felt that building houses was a man's job and my ego refused to let me ask for her help. Besides, by then she'd begin working on something else. At length I stopped to rest, asking her what she was doing to hide my exhaustion, and she replied that she was digging a garden. This wasn't something I knew much about, so I shrugged, and watched for a little while, but quickly grew bored, and went back to carrying stones.
Finally I could not manage the trip any more, and I asked her opinion about the floor plan which I'd laid out. Her first response was to show me that the doors I'd set were too narrow for her to fit her horns through without turning sideways. I set about trying to rearrange some walls to accomodate her, but this led to other problems, and eventually I was forced to admit that perhaps the hall, kitchen, and guest bedroom could be added on later, and that it would be more usful to forget them for now.
Things went on in this vein until I had been grudgingly talked down to a simple four-walled, one room cottage. I held out for a split-level floor just on matter of principle, and Tori eventually admitted that it sounded nice and let me have my way.

After this, each day began to fade into the next as we found a comfortable routine. Tori slowly developed what I supposed to be a quite respectable vegetable garden with plants she'd scavenged from the woods nearby, and the walls of our home grew taller by the day. The first thing I'd completed was a raised platform graced by the most lavish bed we could figure out how to create with our limited resources, and we made good use of it at least twice a day. Some days when we were feeling more adventurous, we'd take our carnal pleasures against a tree, or in the stream, or out at the crossroads, daring someone to come by and catch us going at it. No one did.
My rabbit snares were yielding acceptible results. Tori didn't like to see me kill the little creatures, she thought they were too cute, but she was pleased with the clothing I made for her out of their fur. It didn't cover much, rabbits being small, and Tori being rather large, but it kept her pink parts warm and clean, and I thought she looked awfully sexy in a fur-lined halter top and bikini bottom. Months passed and travelers once again began to dare the road. Merchants passed, and stopped occasionally just down the road, and I found that as long as I went alone and in the mornings, they were often willing to trade goods for rabbit furs. We acquired a sturdy hatchet which I sorely needed to finish the roof, clear trees, and cut firewood, and we purchased a pot for cooking, and a spade for Tori's garden, which I had to admit was beginning to produce at a fairly good rate. She seemed to have a green thumb, and I discovered soon after that she was a better cook than I as well.

I was happier than I'd been in some time. She was nearly always cheerful, and I was beginning to suspect that I truly loved her. Summer was stretching on, and the oppressive august heat was making us more restless than usual during the night. Our cottage was finished, the roof complete and ready to shelter us come the winter rains. The list of things that needed doing seemed to be growing shorter. I'd been cutting more wood for fires, but I already had more than enough from cutting a narrow path to the road. It was Tori who suggested at length that I use some of the wood to build a shelter where we could put the rest over the winter so it could stay dry for firemaking. I jumped into the project, and finished it in a few short weeks. Still bored, I pondered what else I could build. One morning, as I was heading out to the camp pullout to see if there were any merchants camped, it dawned on me that I could build a canopy at the edge of the clearing where our house stood to attract merchants to stay, and save myself the daily walk.

The project proved to be a more complex one than I had expected. First I ran out of good wood to build with, so I began to harvest more from along the pathway I'd cut, and while doing so I realized that if I hoped to attract merchants I'd have to make the path wide enough for a wagon. I ended up with enough wood that I began to add more to my design for the shelter, and realized that the stumps needed to be removed from the path. For this I enlisted Tori and her spade (who I had finally admitted to myself was a most qualified hand at manual labor such as digging), and before long we were both heavily involved in the work. There was much to do, but by the time the first rains came we had a wide path to the crossroads, and a large thatch-roofed awning, enough to shelter a dozen men and their horses. We walked out together in that first rain with a sign that read [SHELTER--TRADE--FOOD], and I held the sign with one hand, my other arm about Tori's waist, while she pounded the picket into the ground with a large rock. We smiled, hugged each other, and headed back home to screw our brains out.